Thanks, Juan. The AP "reportage" in my morning paper made it eminently clear that these folks have absolutely no clue about either time or distance. Enstein, Schmeinstein.
I read Friday an essay by Montaigne -- in which he argues that loyal servants who continue to praise a dead ruler (I'm extending 'dead' here to 'out of office') who was bad deprive us of an example of exemplary service, owed to the ruler even if he is evil because of his office. And that they continue to praise him only from base motives.
Exotic ethics of an earlier day ...
I find Romney's ignorance of the European economic situation absolutely astounding. One would think that a candidate for president at a moment when economic questions are front and center would make a point of being informed about the details, which emphatically did not involve deficit spending on the part of the Spanish government, but instead involved a lot of German money pouring into huge development projects that now stand empty. While I'm a Krugmanite about the solution here, I recognize there's disagreement at that level -- but the historical facts are not in dispute and I don't want anybody being president who hasn't made a point of learning them. Of course knowing those facts would be "professsssorial" ... because bad.
Wow. I had NO idea he'd said that about the Swiss and Cayman bank accounts. Tone-deaf hardly captures it. It is simply profoundly unbecoming for a candidate for president of the U.S. to hold such accounts. This is absolutely not the same as what _I_ think of as "foreign investments". But I'm way the heck down into the 99%, so what do I know?
There is nothing that makes me madder than this kind of "folk anthropology". Culture, my you-know-what. While Palestinians are a diverse population (several religions, many economic levels) they include a surprisingly high number of highly-talented professionals and are famous for their entrepreneurialism. I taught students of Palestinian heritage at Wayne State University in the 70s and 80s and they were among the smartest, most alert, critical, sophisticated, go-getting kids I've known. Here's to ya, Rima, Samir, Nabeel, and all the rest. However, as long as there are hundreds of billions of dollars in campaign contributions tipping the scales toward being a lackey of the Likud, I suspect Mitt is uneducable.
Hey, it could be worse. I just bought a TV at Best Buy and filled out their survey so my salesperson could get the bennies -- their survey uses the utterly bogus "Caucasian". And in response to "Sherm" -- while this is indeed an admirable essay, I can assure him, after teaching and writing on this topic for two decades, that "Whites" have enough invested in the present system that challenging it in any way, shape, or form is very, very difficult and meets lots of student resistance. They are amazingly ingenious at coming up with reasons why all the history that Professor Cole presents so eloquently is irrelevant.
Surely the Chinese are already doing this, big time. They are perceived internationally as a leader in this field and I have the impression that the U.S. is, uh, not.
Now aren't you glad you're still in Ann Arbor? I wouldn't want to be in the same state, let alone on the same campus, with that war criminal John Negroponte.
I am a woman and have been for 40 years a working anthropologist. I am normal looking, not especially attractive, and I have always dressed conservatively when working, even avoiding slacks in the 1960s and 1970s (that seems to no longer be an issue). I have been groped in crowds in Peru and in Mexico, solidly Christian countries. I have been groped in the New York City subway system. I understand that this is a serious problem in crowded transportation sites in Japan, just to add another cultural system. Good literature suggests that the problem may be particularly acute in some Middle Eastern countries and parts of India, but this is not an special "Arab" or "Muslim" problem, but a universal human issue. It is going to take many years of hard work to convince those who police such spaces, and those who raise sons, that the dignity of women and their right to access to public spaces is a fundamental human right.
I agree that you called it nicely. And on academics -- I remember a discussion with a Middle-East specialist colleague on roughly 9-13-2001, or thereabouts. I vividly remember the remark he made, that Hosni Mubarak was probably absolutely delighted, and would now be able to hang on for another decade. He meant that Americans would now be guaranteed to support his crackdown on any opposition.
But nobody could have foreseen -- because after all, actual expertise has that well-known liberal bias.
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Thanks, Juan. The AP "reportage" in my morning paper made it eminently clear that these folks have absolutely no clue about either time or distance. Enstein, Schmeinstein.
I read Friday an essay by Montaigne -- in which he argues that loyal servants who continue to praise a dead ruler (I'm extending 'dead' here to 'out of office') who was bad deprive us of an example of exemplary service, owed to the ruler even if he is evil because of his office. And that they continue to praise him only from base motives.
Exotic ethics of an earlier day ...
I find Romney's ignorance of the European economic situation absolutely astounding. One would think that a candidate for president at a moment when economic questions are front and center would make a point of being informed about the details, which emphatically did not involve deficit spending on the part of the Spanish government, but instead involved a lot of German money pouring into huge development projects that now stand empty. While I'm a Krugmanite about the solution here, I recognize there's disagreement at that level -- but the historical facts are not in dispute and I don't want anybody being president who hasn't made a point of learning them. Of course knowing those facts would be "professsssorial" ... because bad.
Wow. I had NO idea he'd said that about the Swiss and Cayman bank accounts. Tone-deaf hardly captures it. It is simply profoundly unbecoming for a candidate for president of the U.S. to hold such accounts. This is absolutely not the same as what _I_ think of as "foreign investments". But I'm way the heck down into the 99%, so what do I know?
There is nothing that makes me madder than this kind of "folk anthropology". Culture, my you-know-what. While Palestinians are a diverse population (several religions, many economic levels) they include a surprisingly high number of highly-talented professionals and are famous for their entrepreneurialism. I taught students of Palestinian heritage at Wayne State University in the 70s and 80s and they were among the smartest, most alert, critical, sophisticated, go-getting kids I've known. Here's to ya, Rima, Samir, Nabeel, and all the rest. However, as long as there are hundreds of billions of dollars in campaign contributions tipping the scales toward being a lackey of the Likud, I suspect Mitt is uneducable.
Hey, it could be worse. I just bought a TV at Best Buy and filled out their survey so my salesperson could get the bennies -- their survey uses the utterly bogus "Caucasian". And in response to "Sherm" -- while this is indeed an admirable essay, I can assure him, after teaching and writing on this topic for two decades, that "Whites" have enough invested in the present system that challenging it in any way, shape, or form is very, very difficult and meets lots of student resistance. They are amazingly ingenious at coming up with reasons why all the history that Professor Cole presents so eloquently is irrelevant.
Of course as a member of that ancient French family, the de Sarkozy, he has a right to speak out ... oh, wait.
Surely the Chinese are already doing this, big time. They are perceived internationally as a leader in this field and I have the impression that the U.S. is, uh, not.
Now aren't you glad you're still in Ann Arbor? I wouldn't want to be in the same state, let alone on the same campus, with that war criminal John Negroponte.
Thank you for years of sanity and solid information. You are a true patriot and history will make that clear.
I am a woman and have been for 40 years a working anthropologist. I am normal looking, not especially attractive, and I have always dressed conservatively when working, even avoiding slacks in the 1960s and 1970s (that seems to no longer be an issue). I have been groped in crowds in Peru and in Mexico, solidly Christian countries. I have been groped in the New York City subway system. I understand that this is a serious problem in crowded transportation sites in Japan, just to add another cultural system. Good literature suggests that the problem may be particularly acute in some Middle Eastern countries and parts of India, but this is not an special "Arab" or "Muslim" problem, but a universal human issue. It is going to take many years of hard work to convince those who police such spaces, and those who raise sons, that the dignity of women and their right to access to public spaces is a fundamental human right.
I agree that you called it nicely. And on academics -- I remember a discussion with a Middle-East specialist colleague on roughly 9-13-2001, or thereabouts. I vividly remember the remark he made, that Hosni Mubarak was probably absolutely delighted, and would now be able to hang on for another decade. He meant that Americans would now be guaranteed to support his crackdown on any opposition.
But nobody could have foreseen -- because after all, actual expertise has that well-known liberal bias.